The bitter winter weather hit Scotland's retail sector last month, with non-food sales declining despite the approach of Christmas.

Like-for-like sales of non-food items dropped by 1.8% on a year ago as customers struggled to get to the shops due to heavy snow, the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) said.

However, like-for-like sales of food rose 3.5% in December, the biggest increase in 18 months, as people focused on stocking up on essentials and Christmas food and drink.

Warming foods such as soups, stews and pies were popular, as were hot drinks such as tea and hot chocolate, and festive treats like smoked salmon and confectionery.

In December, like-for-like sales, which excludes spending in stores that opened or closed in the intervening year, were up 0.7% on a year ago for food and non-food combined.

This was contrary to the UK as a whole, which saw a drop of 0.3% for the same time period.

Total sales in Scotland were up 3.4% on a year ago according to the SRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor.

Fiona Moriarty, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: "Overall, it was a steady Christmas of unspectacular growth but there was a stark division between retail sectors.

"All December's sales growth came from food while extreme weather and economic uncertainties dealt a major blow to sales of non-food goods. But a seasonal surge in food sales cannot disguise customers' cautious mood.

"The heavy snow hampered people's ability to get out and shop in the first half of the month.

"Concern about further disruption encouraged people to use breaks in the weather for stocking up on essentials and Christmas food and drink, but gifts were less of a priority."

Ms Moriarty said that the struggle to get around helped one-stop shopping destinations and neighbourhood stores.

However, it was not enough to outweigh the damage to non-food sales from the combination of bad weather and fears about job cuts and falling incomes.

In the non-food sector, clothing and footwear showed its largest year-on-year decline since May 2009.

When people could get to the shops, practical footwear such as wellingtons, waterproof
shoes and snowboots sold well, as did warm accessories.

Sales of homewares and furniture were still down on a year ago.

David McCorquodale, KPMG's head of retail in Scotland, said: "Although non-food sales improved in the final week as shoppers headed out to take advantage of clearance bargains in advance of the VAT rise, this was not enough to make good the pre-Christmas shortfall and was at lower margin due to the commencement of the sales.

"2011 is set to be a challenging year but Christmas updates from retailers do not reflect the dire picture of two years ago."